"With the president being in El Paso, it provides an opportunity to test a message that's very different than President Trump's message", communications consultant Hector Nieto said.
In the interview with Winfrey this week, O'Rourke called Trump's push for the wall a "racist response to a problem we don't have".
El Paso County lawmakers passed a resolution ahead of Trump's visit, saying the city's residents are "disillusioned by [the president's] lies regarding the border and our community".
"Now, with a powerful barrier in place, El Paso is one of our safest cities", Trump said.
El Paso had a murder rate of less than half the national average in 2005, a year before the most recent expansion of its border fence.
"It's a stated fact that the wall has stopped crime, and it has lowered in El Paso", Sid Miller said, adding that an extended border wall is "the most humanitarian" solution to border security.
Spurious liquor kills at least 90 people in India
Later Saturday, authorities in both states announced compensation of $2,800 each to the relatives of those killed. Illicit liquor is cheap and often spiked with chemicals such as pesticides to increase potency.
The rally is about three miles away from Trump's event and is being called a "celebration of El Paso" or the "March for Truth".
The El Paso rally is Trump's first since the November midterm elections and comes at a precarious moment for his presidency.
Trump made the claim last week in his State of the Union Address when he said El Paso "used to have extremely high rates of violent crime - one of the highest in the country, and considered one of our nation's most risky cities".
Trump cited the West Texas city in his State of the Union speech last week, when he spent a large portion of the address reiterating his administration's talking points around immigration. On Tuesday, O'Rourke promised a 2020 decision by the end of the month.
Activists gather at the gate near the border crossing fence at the Tornillo Port of Entry near El Paso, Texas, June 21, 2018, during a protest rally by several American mayors against the administration's family separation policy. "It actually increased 5.5 % from the year before construction of the fence started to the year it was completed".
Former Democratic congressman Beto O'Rourke, a native of El Paso, also contested Trump's statements about the border town after the State of the Union.
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